PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] —Brown University Library is pleased to announce that our new schedule of events and exhibits for Fall 2013 is now ready! You can pick up a copy at any Library location starting next week. In the meantime, PDFs are available for download (Fall 2013 Events and Exhibits). Events and exhibits are also listed below.
Check back on the Library blog for updates and more information. You can also check the exhibitions page for updates on past, current, and upcoming exhibits, or sign up to subscribe to our new monthly e-newsletter.
* Members of the general public wishing to view exhibits at the Rockefeller Library
should first check in at the service desk.
The Shadow Over College Street: H. P. Lovecraft in Providence
August 19 – September 22, 2013
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library &
Philbrick Rare Book Room, Providence Athenaeum
Mounted in conjunction with NecronomiCon Providence, this collaborative exhibition explores Lovecraft’s youth in Providence and its role in shaping his career as a master craftsman of weird fiction.
Reading Love Medicine: Beads, Bark, and Books from Ojibwe Country
September 27 – October 24, 2013
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Join us in reading Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine for the 2013–2014 Big Read in Rhode Island, hosted by the Tomaquag Museum with support from Brown University. This exhibit draws on the collections of Brown’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology to explore the stories that can be told about objects from Ojibwe country. The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
Performing in the Spirit:Strings, Drums, Feuges and Pans
Through September 30, 2013
Orwig Music Library
This exhibit explores the instruments and life of the Music Department’s ethnomusicological ensembles including Ghanaian Drumming, Brazilian Choro, Old-time American string, Sacred Harp singing, and Javanese gamelan. At Brown, students learn about performance orally from faculty, guest faculty, and peers while studying cultural origins of musical traditions.
“Made Not Born” Screening with Don Wilmeth and Professor Josiah S. Carberry
Friday, September 13, 2013 • 5:30 pm
Digital Scholarship Lab,
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Who is Professor Josiah S. Carberry?! Who is he not?! Find out when the Professor and Friends of the Library Board member Don Wilmeth present the biographical documentary “Made Not Born: The Wife and Dimes of Professor Josiah S. Carberry,” in the Rock’s new Digital Scholarship Lab. Snacks from The Carberry Cookbook: From Nuts to Soup and discussion will follow. This event is free and open to the public. #josiahcarberry
Student Life at Brown
Through October 11, 2013
Lobby, Maddock Alumni Center
In a continuing effort to showcase student life at Brown University, the University Archives has created an exhibit of photographs and museum objects in the lobby of the Maddock Alumni Center. Since Brown University was founded in 1764, student life has undergone dramatic social, academic, cultural, and political changes. The exhibit provides a glimpse of student life through a variety of photographs, a fan and dance card from 1914, a mug from 1942, a freshman beanie from 1958, and a commemorative Faunce House mailbox.
Visually Inspiring Biology
October 17, 2013 • 7:00 pm
Digital Scholarship Lab,
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Brown STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) is a student initiative focused on integrating artistic and scientific thought to nurture interdisciplinary and creative project-based education. For this second part of the Visually Inspiring Biology mini-series, Hay staff will present medical and botanical art-folios from the Library’s Special collections. A creativity workshop will follow. This event is free and open to the public.
Material Encounters in the Archive Symposium
Friday, October 25, 2013 • 2:00–5:30 pm
room 305, Pembroke Hall
Three interdisciplinary humanities scholars, Anjali Arondekar (Feminist Studies, University of California at Santa Cruz), Ariella Azoulay (Modern Culture and Media, Brown University), and Kate Eichhorn (Culture and Media Studies, The New School), will discuss how their engagement with archival objects has shaped their understanding of the potential, as well as the limits, of the archive as a site of knowledge production. An open discussion moderated by Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian, will follow. This symposium is hosted by the Feminist Theory Archives, a collaboration between the Brown University Library and the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women.
Paul Grant-Costa and Tobias Glaza,
Yale Indian Papers Project
Tuesday, October 29, 2013 • 5:30 pm
Digital Scholarship Lab,
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Paul Grant-Costa and Tobias Glaza will discuss the Yale Indian Papers Project, which collates materials from partner institutions into a scholarly critical edition of New England Native American primary source materials. By providing annotated transcriptions, the project offers students, educators, researchers, Native American tribal members, and the general public, visual and intellectual access to significant historical knowledge for the purposes of teaching, scholarly analysis, and research. This event is free and open to the public.
Witnesses to a Remote Past
October 31 – November 22, 2013
Annmary Brown Memorial
In celebration of two conferences, Late Literature in the Sixth Century: East and West and the annual New England Medieval Conference, and in memory David A. Warner, a beloved colleague and professor of history at RISD, the Library will present an exhibition of materials from the University’s Medieval manuscript collections. The Memorial is open to the public Monday through Friday from 1:00–5:00 pm during the academic year.
Flatland and Abbott
November 1 – November 29, 2013
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library*
Professor Tom Bancroft will curate this exhibit in celebration of the 175th anniversary of the birth of Edwin Abbott, the author of Flatland, the classic introduction to Exploring the Fourth Dimension. Pre-publication first and second editions signed by the author, as well as translations into seventeen languages, will be on display from the John Hay Library’s Special Collections.
The Return of Rush Hawkins’ Sword!
November 7, 2013 • 3:00 pm
Annmary Brown Memorial
Join the University Library as we celebrate the return of Rush Hawkins’ Civil War-era silver Tiffany presentation sword to the Annmary Brown Memorial, the resting place of Rush Hawkins and his wife, Annmary Brown. Curators, attorneys, and historians will talk about Rush Hawkins, the social history of his sword, and its remarkable journey back to campus. The Higher Keys, Brown’s oldest co-ed a cappella group, will perform. This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
Flatland and Abbott
Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2013 • 5:30 pm
Digital Scholarship Lab,
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Tom Banchoff, Brown Professor of Mathematics, will discuss his research on the fourth dimension, including his biography of Edwin Abbott Abbott, The Man Who Wrote ‘Flatland.’ Banchoff’s research includes the geometry and topology of smooth and polyhedral surfaces as well as development and dissemination of internet-based courseware for communication and visualization in undergraduate mathematics. This event
is free and open to the public.
Digital Public Library of America Talk
Wednesday, November 13, 2013 • 6:00 pm
John Nicholas Brown Center for Public
Humanities and Cultural Heritage
Lecture Room, Nightingale Brown House,
357 Benefit Street, rear entrance
For this program, co-sponsored by the Center for Public Humanities, the John Carter Brown Library, and the Brown University Library, Dan Cohen, Director, DPLA, will speak about the Digital Public Library of America.
The Art of Illusion: Selections from the H. Adrian Smith Collection of Conjuring and Magicana
December 5, 2013 – March 26, 2014
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library*
H. Adrian Smith, Brown class of 1930, assembled during his lifetime one of the finest private collections of magic books, manuscripts, and ephemera. The exhibit will feature Smith’s rich collections on conjuring, bequeathed to the University upon his death in 1992.
Dresden and Nymphenburg
Porcelains from the
Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection
December 5, 2013 – March 26, 2014
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library*
While John Nicholas Brown was working with the allied forces in Germany in 1945 reporting on stolen art works, he visited the factory at Nymphenburg in Bavaria and ordered 21 porcelain figures for his wife, Anne S. K. Brown. Subsequent additions to this set came from the Dresden porcelain factory. Today these porcelains form a unique segment of the foremost American collection devoted to the history and iconography of
soldiers and soldiering.
An Evening with 2013 Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, Ayad Akhtar ’91
Monday, December 9, 2013 • 7:00 pm
Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center
Join Brown University Library and Friends of the Library for the 10th Annual Don Wilmeth Endowed Lectureship in American Theatre featuring renowned American writer and actor, Ayad Akhtar. Akhtar, Brown class of 1991, majored in theater and earned his masters in directing from Columbia University. Akhtar published his first novel, American Dervish, in 2012, and is currently working on his second novel. In 2013, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Disgraced. This event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.
Josiah Carberry Cooking Demonstration & Cookbook Signing
Friday, December 13, 2013 • 3:00 pm
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library
Perhaps there will be chocolate chicken! Perhaps fried dandelions or Oysters Rockefeller Library! Come see a cooking demonstration and try free snacks from the Carberry Cookbook. Cookbooks will be for sale and Carberry may or may not be around to sign them! This event is free and open to the public. #josiahcarberry